From a pilot RE: The midair crash.
This is from a close friend who happens to be a commercial pilot. He flies on the West Coast, but his insights apply to what the pilots were facing over the Reagan airport too:
Thoughts from your local friendly aviation professional (none of which are meant to assign blame, responsibility, or conjecture):
- Transport category airplanes (aka passenger jets, such as the one that crashed last night) have a system that directs the pilots where/how to fly if a collision is imminent. This is called TCAS (Traffic alert and Collision Avoidance System, pronounced "TEE-kass"). It is inhibited below a certain altitude (usually around 1,000 feet above the ground) given proximity to terrain. Once below that threshold altitude the system will only alert to traffic ("traffic advisory") and will not direct the pilots what to do ("resolution advisory"). This means that the regional jet pilots probably didn't get a directive for what to do with the "intruding" aircraft (helicopter). I presume the helicopter also had a TCAS installed but I know almost nothing about helicopters. We sometimes manually change the system to not give us resolution advisories when we are higher than that threshold altitude, such as when landing in San Francisco when another plane is lined up for a parallel runway literally right next to you.
- Air traffic controllers are trained for years, do frequent (monthly or more) recurrent training, and overall do a phenomenal job and should be applauded. They should also be paid more, and there should be more of them. They can be federal employees (larger facilities) and contractors (smaller airports). I haven't confirmed whether or not there is currently a hiring freeze. Most air traffic control facilities are understaffed.
- Once an air traffic controller (ATC) calls out another plane/helicopter/etc. to you and you respond "Traffic in sight," it becomes your responsibility to "Maintain visual separation" and no longer (primarily) ATC's. Regardless, it is always a pilot's responsibility to "see and avoid" (language from the FAA's textbook "Airplane Flying Handbook").
- Spotting other air traffic is difficult- harder than you would expect. Night makes it more difficult. Night in an urban area (lots of other lights!) makes it more difficult still. Night in an urban area with lots of airplanes descending into the same airport is very challenging- and easy to mix up which plane is which.
- Airplanes, like cars, have blind spots. Small aircraft pilots are taught to check those blind spots when turning and before practicing maneuvers.
- The helicopter pilots were on a designated helicopter airway. You can see it yourself: Visit the website skyvector, find and zoom in on Washington, D.C., and click the helicopter charts (top right of the page).
- The military has dedicated airspace they use to practice in, called Military Operations Areas (MOA). You can see those on the "sectional" ("VFR" for visual flight rules) charts on skyvector as well. In this case the helicopter pilots were not in a MOA (which they don't have to be). It is important for pilots to practice in the areas in which they will be called on to operate, which is why these helicopter pilots were where they were: they could be the ones designated to fly VIPs evacuating the Capitol in an emergency.
- The current president's decision to gut (no longer populate) the Aviation Security Advisory Committee didn't cause this, but it will lead to the skies being less safe in the future.
- DEI hiring practices and the administrative decisions of previous presidents did not cause this crash, and if you believe for one second that they had even a shred of culpability, you're part of the problem and have bought into propaganda. (Not to mention that study after study shows that a diverse- in all senses- workforce leads to better and safer outcomes.)
- The NTSB is a phenomenal organization and I await their professional opinion as to what happened and what we can change to prevent these kinds of accidents (and the circumstances that lead to them). Investigations take time. You can even read past accident investigations- the NTSB's aviation accident database is a fascinating resource.
- There is nothing that the passengers on board the PSA flight could have done to prevent this accident. However, the next time you fly and you unbuckle your seatbelt early (my biggest pet peeve), leave your phone or iPad plugged in to seat power during takeoff or landing, use the bathroom when the seatbelt sign is on, don't stow your bag completely underneath the seat in front of you, or have a laptop out during takeoff or landing (and then roll your eyes at a flight attendant for reminding you to follow any of these instructions), you are making the skies less safe, and your safety is at risk. All of these are required for your safety. Obeying these likely won't make a difference... until that one scenario where they make a huge difference. Be safe. Follow crewmember instructions. And while we're at it, take your earbuds out and actually pay attention to the flight attendant briefing. It actually matters. Plus, flight attendants are there first and foremost for safety- your safety- and not to provide a beverage service.
- It is not lost on those of us in this industry that you trust your lives to us each and every day we show up to work.
- This is an absolute tragedy and my heart goes out to all those who lost their lives and the many others mourning their absence.
Thanks for reading.
Comments
Politically, I feel like this crash is very symbolic, and I'm honestly sick and tired of being expected to be nice an tidy and objective while the right wing gets to run ahead and set the narrative that everyone understands.
All said, that reads like a lot of good sense.
I have heard the Air Traffic radio recording as it's in the public domain. The Helicopter pilot was flying VFR (visual flight rules) in controlled space. The Heli was instructed to pass behind the landing aircraft and the pilot stated he had visual on the aircraft.
There will be lots of factors. Flying VFR is hard work in busy airspace. Even more hardwork for the controllers. I only fly in the daytime and night definitely makes it harder.
I don't want to prejudge the enquiry but on the face of it, it's pilot error by the Helicopter pilot. He was instructed to pass behind the plane and had told the controller he had visually sited the other aircraft.
Tragic for all. I doubt we will know anything more until the report is released.
AFZ
I’ll be interested to see comments about TCAS in the either the preliminary of the final report.
I just saw a report from NPR that, per request, they will not release the name of one of the helicopter pilots, but they mentioned that the pilot in question was female.
They really didn't need to mention that, and I think I know quite well why the family was guarding her privacy after the president just blanket-scapegoated everyone in the military who isn't a white man.
Source.
I’m only guessing but it may be possible to improve the TCAS technology to spot a too close moving vehicle despite the ground effects. That could be a recommendation to investigate for example.
One of the values of an investigation is that it gives scope for the possibility of recommending that kind of improvement.
So one of the things I do in my day job is to do analysis on what we could generically call "undesired events" - things that happened that we didn't want to happen. We look at why they happened, not with a view to assigning blame, but with a view to look at systems and procedures and cross-checks and so on to see what (if anything) we could change to not do something similar again.
It is pretty clear from the ATC audio that the Blackhawk thought it knew where the CRJ was, thought it had eyes on it, but was actually looking at something else. And at one level, you could shrug and say "pilot error, end of story". But the questions I'd be asking would be partly technical (are there upgrades to TCAS that could be useful in this situation, with the understanding that a jet at 300 feet in the process of landing has limited choices - he can land, or he can slam on the power and abort, and that's basically it. The helicopter has more scope to maneuver.), partly procedural (everyone knows it's difficult to see what's going on at night in a congested area with lots of lights. Should the operating procedures allow the Blackhawk to rely on visual identification of the CRJ? Are there technical tools that could help assure that the thing the pilot was looking at was the thing they thought they were looking at?), and partly compliance (were the actions of all the parties involved consistent with the standard operating procedures that they have? If there were deviations from a standard written procedure, is that a deviation that happens routinely, because the procedure is viewed as cumbersome and awkward, so humans work around it, or is this a one-off mistake?
(Active malice is possible, but rare.)
Absolutely. 100% agree with this. In general aviation (my hobby) is very good at this and medicine (my profession) really isn't.
Humans make mistakes. Most systems in aviation are designed to be safe even if humans make an error. That's why, by an iterative process, aviation has become so safe.
The NTSB will look at it this way.
AFZ
BBC News - Medical jet with six aboard crashes into Philadelphia neighbourhood
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg0m5n8g0do